A lot of the things sonmnvayina are posting are in error, but there's some bits in particular that are so wrong I want to respond to them specifically:

sonmvayina:

It was emperor Constantine who saw that religion was a big stumbling block in achieving domination gathered all the religious leaders in the empire to nicea to fashion a single religion for the empire.

Nicaea was about the question whether the Son was of the same substance as the Father or a separate and created (but still divine) being. It had nothing to do what you claim it does.

So many gods where tabled for consideration, after almost 2 years of deliberations they settled for Marduk... But in the Babylonian tales Marduk was the son of Enki.. So they had to find out the relationship between both.. Some said he was God, others said he was man.. So after much in other to satisfy both Athanasius said he was both God and man... A vote was taken and the majority carried the day..

This is absolutely made up.

From the ancient Babylonian scriptures eusebius was commanded to prepare a uniform account. "make it to astonish.. Was emperor Constantine order and they where written accordingly.. So says eusebius in his history of the church...

Eusebius says no such thing, as far as I can tell. This is a false quote.

http://www.bobkwebsite.com/belmythvjesusmyth.html

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/baal01.php
http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/osy.php

sonmvayina:
The Christian church/ catholic church was born...
Eusebius more likely than not is the author of the gospel of Mark. Who scholars agree was the first to be written. Others where developed from it..

We have physical manuscripts of Mark that predate Eusebius. Did Eusebius have the power of time travel?

Absurd claims like this make it extremely hard to take anything you say seriously.

Afterwards, John crysostom edited the works of apollinius oftyna and passed them off as the letters of Paul..

We have physical manuscripts of the letters of Paul that predate John Chrysostom. Did John Chrysostom have the power of time travel?

None of those letters ever mention an earthly Jesus or any of the stories associated with him.. None. No angel visiting Mary, no 3 wise men.. Nothing..

As Paul was writing to people who were already Christians, there would be little reason to go into much detail at all about the life of Jesus, as they would have already known. But even so, you err in saying that his letters never mention an early Jesus given that 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 states that Jesus died, was buried, and resurrected--this is extremely earthly.

TruthDefender:
Kanye will be lucky to get 5,000 votes nationwide. He's irrelevant politically.

No, he'll definitely get more than 5,000 votes. Take a look at this tabulation of how many votes people got in 2016:
https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

(you'll have to click on the "+" in the "Other (+)" for more candidates to show up)

Thoroughly unknown candidates that were on the ballot in maybe one or two states were able to top 5,000. If they can do that, there's no way someone as well-known as Kanye wouldn't.

That said, Kanye still isn't likely to get much in the way of votes. He started his campaign so late that he's missed a bunch of deadlines for ballot access in various states, and if you're not on the ballot, people can't vote for you (there's the write-in option but usually those aren't actually tabulated by name unless there are so many write-ins that it's possible a write-in candidate could actually win). If I had to throw out a number, I would predict that Kanye will get a total of about 80,000 votes. Still a quite small amount in the grand scheme of the election, but certainly more than 5,000.

Additionally, it's questionable whether Kanye would actually, as some claim, "split" the vote with Biden. A number of his policy positions are actually more in line with Trump than with Biden, and his frequent "troll" nature could easily appeal to some Trump voters. If he takes votes from both Biden and Trump, he's not really splitting any vote.

So while I disagree strongly on the idea that Kanye would be lucky to get 5,000 votes, I do agree with the general point that he's unlikely to make any real change in the result of the election.

The problem I have with Trump's refusal to release his tax forms is that I remember back during the 2016 election he declared that the reason he wasn't releasing them was because he claimed the IRS was auditing him but once that was over he would absolutely release them. Not only did he not do that, he's fought tooth and nail to avoid doing so.

If he had just refused to do it citing privacy or whatever that would problematic, but it would be consistent. Instead he's gone all the way to the Supreme Court to try to avoid doing exactly what he said he was going to do once the IRS finished with the supposed audit (which I don't think he provided proof for).

basilico:
Is the Postal Service equiped to deal with lets say 130 million ballots sent and received ie 260m ballots.

According to their site (see here), the US postal service handles 181.9 million pieces of mail per day. Now, the mail-in ballots are spread out over time, so if we give it a month of early voting, that would be 260/30 which is slightly less than 9 million per day, which is only a 5% increase. All things considered, it's not actually that big of an increase for them. So I see little reason to believe they aren't equipped to deliver the ballots.

MAYOWAAK:


BETWEEN THE LATE 80'S AND EARLY 90'S,THERE WAS A POUPULAR BOOK AMONG CHRISTIANS WRITTEN BY ONE FACELESS CHARLATAN BY THE NAME EMMANUEL ENI.THE TITLE OF THE BOOK WAS "DELIVERED FROM THE POWER OF DARKNESS".THE AUTHOR CLAIMED THAT HE ROSE TO BECOME THE DEPUTY TO SATAN IN HIS KINGDOM.OTHER INCREDULOUS STORIES FILLED THAT BOOK SO MUCH SO THAT AN INVESTIGATION WAS LAUNCHED TO ASCERTAIN THE VERACITY OF THE OUTLANDISH AND BOGUS TALES IN THE SAID BOOK.IT WAS FOUND OUT THAT THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK WAS A TALE RECOUNTED BY AN USURPER WHOSE IMAGINATION WAS RUNNING HAYWIRE IN HIS BID TO DECEIVE THE UNDISCERNING.

SO GOLDTITO,ARE YOU SURE YOU NOT IN THE SAME SHOES AS THE LIAR THAT WAS EXPOSED YEARS AGO.

I know it's a long shot to get a response to a thread from a decade ago, but I might as well ask. Is there someplace where information about this investigation could be found? I'm highly dubious about the testimony of this "Emmanuel Eni" myself, but was unable to find out much information about him. So I'm wondering where this investigation you allude to could be seen.

rentAcock:
Pastors are worried that social distancing will reduce the capacity of the church and thereby decrease offerings. I'm not even sure if all these attempts at social distancing is effective considering that when you sneeze droplet aerosols can travel as fast as 100,000 miles per second. So how exactly does a 6ft distance prevent the spread? The one that makes me laugh the most is the proposition that airplanes should fly with the middle seat empty; how does it prevent the spread of aerosols in and closed compartment?

6 feet isn't that great of a protection against sneezing, it's true (though it still helps some), but it does help considerably in preventing a virus from spreading via regular talking or breathing. If sneezing is involved, someone (if not already wearing a mask) can try to cover themselves when they feel it coming or at least sneeze in a direction where people aren't standing.

Also, sneezes go 100 miles per hour, not 100,000 miles per second. 100,000 miles per second is 1/3 the speed of light!

Abbeybailey:
America is like a war zone right now and the president is in the White House tweeting his presidency away. How come he can't make a National speech to calm the situation down instead of putting gas on the fire.

The thing is, it's Trump we're talking about. A national speech by him probably would put gas on the fire. Him being quiet about it is probably the best thing he can do to calm the situation down.

Abbeybailey:
That's Trump right there and that's one of many reasons he will not get more than 4% of African Americans votes.

That number seems a bit questionable, as he got 8% of African American votes in 2016. Obviously still quite small, but still more than 4%.

Actually, Trump actually got a higher percentage of African Americans than Romney did in 2012, which was 6%. Though that could have just been margin of error in the exit polls.

AfonjaBoston:
Why we have a thread on nairaland about this is funny though and americans on similar portals don't care shit about naija elections

People pay a lot more attention to countries that wield a lot of power on the world stage; the countries that do the most of that are America, China, and arguably Russia. The European countries together are fairly powerful but on an individual basis not so much.

Of those three countries, America is the only one whose elections are worth paying attention to. The United Russia Party will dominate Russian politics and the Chinese Communist Party will dominate Chinese politics. America, on the other hand, fluctuates constantly as to which party is in power. So of the most major countries in the world, the only one with elections really worth paying attention to is America's.

Nigeria, however, is of pretty small importance internationally right now, and so little attention is paid to it outside of Africa.

But the page you link to always has this rather important section:

His true date of birth was never determined. His claims are considered to be a myth by gerontologists. While his claims have not been verified, they have been widely circulated as an Internet hoax.

Also, the quote in the original post claims the source page says "Li Ching-Yuen,or Li Ching-Yun, or Li Qingyun (died 6 May 1933) was a Chinese herbalist, martial artist and tactical advisor, known for his extreme longevity." But the linked page actually says he was "known for his supposed extreme longevity."

So it's far from clear that he actually lived for more than 250 years.

petra1:


Many did . Your hatred dudnt allow you see it ni.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2_2Y_zHjEI

If you watch the YouTube video, it indeed does look like an astoundingly accurate prophecy. The problem is that the YouTube video is deceptively edited. The original prophecy can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/PROPHETGBEMIGADETUBERU/videos/1924327937649997/

It starts at about 2:35:00 in. Now note what he says in the original video from 2018:
"When the doctor look at the sickness, it's not virus, it's not bacteria. Or something different, something strange. It's not bacteria, and it's going to be very fast. They will give it a name, something black. That what they will call it, and it will do a lot of damage."

Now observe what the YouTube video you posted has him say (about a minute in):
"When the doctor look at the sickness or something different, something strange. It's not bacteria, and it's going to be very fast. They will give it a name. it will do a lot of damage."

The statement of "it's not virus" was removed, as well the fact that the name would be "something black." Why? Because those didn't happen. COVID is a virus and its name doesn't have "black" on it. So not only does this demonstrate it wasn't a true prophecy due to the errors, they were dishonest and edited it to make it look more accurate.

There very well could have been more deceitful edits later in the video--after discovering the above, I decided to not bother further with it. (oddly, they were the ones who provided the link to the original 2018 video on their Facebook, which as noted is how I saw the inaccuracies in the prophecy that were edited out--did they perhaps just think someone wouldn't watch the video carefully enough to notice the difference?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WCQhuh3KDg

This one seems more promising than the first, but when you get down to it, the only hard parts he makes in the prophecy was that there would be a major disease and that it would come from the ocean. A prediction of a major disease doesn't mean much of anything, because those are basically guaranteed to happen at some point. Now, the claim of it being from the ocean is more specific, and the video tries to claim that this matches up with COVID coming from a seafood market. But this is a major stretch. While there was seafood sold in the market, the virus spread not from the seafood, but from the live animals there. The virus is regarded as coming from bats, spreading to pangolin, and then to humans--neither bats nor pangolin are from the ocean. Further, the market was just where it was first really noticed and got attention, the virus predates that discovery.

Furthermore, he says that the disease would be "more deadly than HIV and cancer." Is that true? Well, according to this, about 9.6 million people died of cancer in 2018 (I couldn't find data on 2019). And according to this, 327,463 people have died of COVID. Now, obviously, COVID didn't really get going until several months into 2020, and 2020 isn't over. So that number will go up. But it's highly unlikely to bypass the number of cancer deaths. We'll have to wait until 2021 to be sure, of course, but the current evidence indicates it is not more deadly than cancer and if it is, we won't know until later.

There is a video here saying that deceptive editing was done to make the prophecy look better than it was. I am not sure how accurate its accusations are (though it's mostly criticizing attempts to connect his statements about the Tianjin explosion to the Coronavirus than the specifics of the predictions of a major disease).

So it seems a stretch to try to claim that these aspects of the prophecy were true. I suppose it is possible that COVID will end up killing more people than cancer and that we'll find some more direct link to the ocean, but these are only possibilities--we can't count the prophecy as being confirmed until those are found to be true.

I actually know a doctor and I showed the photos to him. He looked at the pictures and said that he was unable to offer a diagnosis based just on looking at the photos and didn't want to make any guesses.

Now, he doesn't specialize in dermatology (dermatology is the study of skin-released diseases) but as a doctor he still has some knowledge of skin diseases. Perhaps someone who specializes in dermatology could give a diagnosis based just on the pictures... but unless someone in this topic specializes in dermatology, they're unlikely to be more useful than the doctor I consulted with.

So if your friend wants to know what it is and how to treat it, they unfortunately probably need to go to a hospital.

I should point out it seems the article has been edited since this topic was started. This portion quoted by the original poster:

Leading his congregation in a brutal prayer against deadly virus, Pastor Enenche said its tenure would expire within 21 days.

Now reads:

Leading his congregation in a brutal prayer against deadly virus, Pastor Enenche declared an immediate end to this evil satanic plague.

Also, this portion:

“From today, between now and 21 days, we make a demand for immediate answer on this matter."

Now reads:

Praying, he said, we make demands on God for an immediate answer on this matter.

Furthermore, the title of the article is different (it is now "‘Evil wind brought corona virus’ – Pastor Paul Enenche, Dunamis members move against deadly disease" and no longer makes any reference to "21 days" (although the URL still does, which is how I know the article was edited rather than the quotations in the original post being wrong).

It's possible that the 21 days thing was a misquote or misunderstanding of what he said, and upon correction the article was adjusted to remove it.

Stealing Is Now Legal In California USA

That isn't at all what the article says.

rottennaija:


What is eugenics?

It's the idea of trying to limit reproduction of those with "inferior" genetics in order to make the species stronger.

LordReed:
Damn! I actually assumed there was archeological evidence for Solomon's Temple. Shows how much indoctrination can influence a person.

Looking into it, it seems there has been no true archeological excavations of the area due to various political and religious considerations (most notably it's so close to the Dome of the Rock and the Muslims would get upset if a full-on archeological excavation occurred). Lack of archeological evidence isn't particularly surprising under those circumstances; you can't find something if you're not able to look for it.

zendi:
It will be Bloomberg vs Trump. The Dem leadership will see to it.
The entire universe knows that Bennie is unelectable, as his ideological soulmate across the pond, Jeremy Corbyns was. That's why stocks rose when he won the early caucuses.

The problem is, "the entire universe knew" that Trump was unelectable. As for Jeremy Corbyn, I think a major reason for his trouncing was the fact that he had such a wishy-washy position on Brexit, while his opponent had a clear and definite one and a roadmap to getting it done (Boris Johnson got every member of his party running for election to sign a pledge that they would support his Brexit deal). Brexit was THE issue in that election, and one party had a clear strategy that would appease the people who wanted Brexit as well as those who didn't but just wanted the issue finished one way or the other, whereas the other's proposal would not satisfy those opposed to Brexit, nor those who just wanted it finished one way or the other.

JeromeBlack:



Bloomberg? A politician that has the charisma of a petrified mouse? Bloomberg has been far behind in the primaries. No way. Money does not always buy power.


Sanders is the man. See his performance in the primaries.

It's true Bloomberg has been far behind in the primaries... but he hasn't even tried in the primaries they've had so far. I don't think he was even on the ballot in some of them. Given that his strategy has been to ignore the early states and try to make up for it afterwards (the early states offer only a small percentage of delegates, winning them is more for good press than anything else), him being "far behind" in the states he wasn't trying to win doesn't mean much.

We'll only be able to start seeing if his strategy pays off on March 3, when there are 14 primaries at once, including California and Texas, which offer a huge number of delegates.

Gideon97:


"What the video (conveniently) doesn't mention is that the handful of patients who reported the out of body experiences did so in rooms that didn't have the cards set up, so the fact they didn't see them means absolutely nothing."

Do you have any source for these claims? Because the studies say they take account of only those that had the cards in the room.

Sorry for this response being a bit late.

Now, I'm not sure where your claim that "the studies say they take account of only those that had the cards in the room" comes from. It doesn't seem to be in the study report itself. Which is, incidentally, my source. The article in the Resuscitation journal that gave the results of the study states this:

"The other two patients (2%) experienced specific auditory/visual awareness (category 5). Both patients had suffered ventricular fibrillation (VF) in non-acute areas where shelves had not been placed."

So of the two patients who did have an out of body experience, they occurred where the shelves hadn't been placed. And, unfortunately, it turned out that a lot of the cardiac arrests took place in rooms that didn't have those shelves: "Despite the installation of approximately 1000 shelves across the participating hospitals only 22% of CA [Cardiac Arrest] events actually took place in the critical and acute medical wards where the shelves had been installed and consequently over 78% of CA events took place in rooms without a shelf."

Both of these quotes can be found on page 1802 (which is page 3 of the article itself, not counting its title page). This is as primary of a source as you can get. Here are two locations where the article can be accessed:
https://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(14)00739-4/fulltext
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0300957214007394

Unfortunately, it isn't available to everyone. As is typical for scientific journal articles, they're not available to the general public unless you're willing to pay for either access to the article itself, or pay for a subscription to the journal it's in. Some academic institutions like a university can offer access for free, but that might not be a possibility for you.

Still, if you can't access it and you don't want to take the word of a random guy on the Internet as to what the article says, this link from the Psychology Today magazine does mention the study and repeats what I noted:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201409/seeing-the-light

"But only two patients reported a veridical perception, the experience of leaving their bodies and observing events in the room during the time their brains were offline. And just one of those patients felt well enough to return to the hospital for a second interview by AWARE investigators. The man reported encountering an entity “with lovely curly hair” that he “perceived to be an angel.”

He also served up a detail researchers could confirm. To jolt him out of cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation (fluttering of the heart muscle fibers, leaving the organ unable to pump or beat rhythmically), the Southampton team had used a piece of equipment not usually found in hospitals: an automatic external defibrillator, normally meant for use by laypersons in nonmedical settings. A distinguishing feature of the machine was that it gave verbal feedback to users via a mechanical voice. “I can remember vividly an automated voice saying, ‘Shock the patient, shock the patient,’” the man told interviewers. But the cardiac arrest occurred in a room without the strategically placed shelf or image; blinded proof of veridical perception eludes AWARE still."

Gideon97:
Near death Experiences are not a proof of the afterlife. Believe me NDEs (Near death Experiences) have been studied for decades and these experiences all vary from each other greatly. Plus science has recognized a phenomenon in the brain that makes people hallucinate during these situations. This video is a great summary on the scientific work that has gone into it

That video is also misleading and selective in what it presents. For example, it mentions a study about NDEs in which cards bearing numbers and images were placed in hospital rooms where patients couldn't see them from the bed, but could see them if they had an out of body experience. It then says that no one who had an out of body experience during the duration of the study saw the cards. What the video (conveniently) doesn't mention is that the handful of patients who reported the out of body experiences did so in rooms that didn't have the cards set up, so the fact they didn't see them means absolutely nothing.

Appleyard:


I have argued this line here before. The problem is, many people already have a bad picture of socialism, even though it has evolved to become "democratic-socialism, " in its current model. That's the model working for a number of European countries like Sweden, Denmark, and even the UK to some extent. But unfortunately, that name alone is a taboo to the ears of many Americans, especially the whites that are more on the conservative views.

Thus, as Trump rightly put it during the State of the Union address last week, most Americans won't tolerate it, let alone vote for it. So, if Bernie should pick the ticket, there is no chance in hell he is going to win most of the key swing states and the minorities in the middle.

The thing is, even if Americans don't care for socialism, that does not mean they wouldn't be willing to vote for Bernie. They could very well rationalize it with the idea of "well, his more extreme ideas won't get enacted, as congress will stop him" in the same way I know some people thought about Trump in 2016. And indeed that turned out to be the case for Trump; even with a Republican majority in both houses of congress, he didn't have the numbers to get Obamacare repealed and he didn't get funding for his wall. The same thing is true for Sanders. Even if both the House and Senate have Democrat majorities after the election, which is already far from certain, there are probably not enough Democrats there that would go along with some of his ideas to enact them into law.

I therefore expect that if Bernie gets the nomination there will be a good number of people who, while thinking his policies are too extreme, will think through what I just said and vote for him anyway on the basis they don't think he'll actually be able to pull off his ideas.

uruba23:
Na wa o Hmmm New York ...Rip sha Yeah she committed suicide..I kukuma don't understand this world .Stale news though 2017

Yeah, this happened back in 2017. I'm not sure why the linked article acted as if it just happened.

musicwriter:
No one has ever seen God (1 John 4:12).

Contradiction:
The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend (Exodus 33:11).

musicwriter:
No man has seen or can see God (1 Timothy 6:16).

Contradiction:
The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day (Genesis 18:1).

The statement that no one has seen God refers to seeing God fully, in his complete glory. Those who "saw" God did not see this and only saw a lesser form. For some more detail, see here.

musicwriter:
There is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins (Ecclesiastes 7:20).

Contradiction:
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright (Job 1:1)

musicwriter:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

Contradiction:
Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God (Genesis 6:9)

From my understanding, "blameless" is a superior translation for the Hebrew word in question than "perfect" and indeed I believe that is the more common English translation of the word. Its purpose is to demonstrate they were holy people, but not that they were in fact sinless. See also here.

musicwriter:
The women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples (Matthew 28: 8 )

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others (Luke 24:9)

Contradiction:
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. (Mark 16: 8 )

They said nothing to anyone initially, but later did.

musicwriter:
I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you (Genesis 17:7)

Contradiction:
The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. (Hebrews 8:6–13)

Genesis 17:7 refers to a covenant with Abraham. Hebrews 8:6-13 is referring to a replacement of the separate covenant made with Moses.

musicwriter:
If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9)

Contradiction:
Not everyone who says to me, ''Lord, Lord,'' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven Matthew 7:21.

Matthew 7 makes no mention of belief, only saying "Lord, Lord." It also comes immediately after a discussion regarding false prophets. The distinction here is between those who actually believe (referred to in Romans) and those who merely claim to believe but in fact do not (referred to in Matthew).

musicwriter:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Contradiction:
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done (Matthew 16:27).

Believing or not believing is something that you "have done." One could also say that the Matthew verse refers not to the act of being saved or not, but merely what level of reward someone receives (e.g. a martyr could receive greater honor than a normal Christian in heaven, even though both are saved).

musicwriter:
If you make the Most High your dwelling—even the LORD, who is my refuge—then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. (Psalm 91:5–10)

2 contradictions:
Like a servant who earnestly desires the shade, and like a hired man who eagerly looks for his wages, so I have been allotted months of futility, and wearisome nights have been appointed to me (Job 7:2:3)

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12–13)

Psalms is proverbial literature and should not be read absolutely. For more information, see here.

musicwriter:
I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me (Exodus 20:5).

3 Contradictions.
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin (Deuteronomy 24:16).

Everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge (Jeremiah 31:30).

The one who sins is the one who will die (Ezekiel 18:4).

Immediately after Exodus 20:5 comes "but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." This demonstrates the purpose of it: A rhetorical device to contrast the blessings of God as more positive than the punishments of God are negative, as demonstrated by the fact "a thousand generations" is much less than "three or four generations." Indeed, this would indicate that the punishing the children only applies while they continue to, like their parents, hate God--should they follow God's commandments instead, they would be put into the latter group of being given blessings. Attempting to read this as some kind of contradiction with the other verses given is to simply miss the actual point of Exodus 20:5 when read in context. For another take, see here.

musicwriter:
Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).

3 Contradictions:
Then Jesus said to the woman, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." (Matthew 15:24)

Jesus sent out the twelve disciples with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.'' Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 10:5–6)

No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of Jehovah, not even in the tenth generation (Deuteronomy 23:3).

The first "contradiction" refers only to the mission Jesus had on Earth; it was only later that it was truly time to try to bring it to everyone. The second refers only to a specific preaching they were doing, and does not refer to everything subsequently. I'm not sure what the third has to do with Matthew 28:19, but perhaps it comes from misunderstanding "the assembly of Jehovah" as being heaven, when it was actually in reference to some religious meetings. In any event, by the time of the New Testament no one would have qualified as that anyway, as any descendants of Ammonites and Moabites would have been long past the ten generations mentioned.

A few notes:

Daejoyoung:

ok let me cut to the chase. I cannot for instance accept the old testament stories that Elijah was angry and asked God to kill young boys and a wild beast mauled 42 of them simply because they mocked his bald head, that is not the god of jesus in the new testament.

First, you say that Elijah asked God to kill them. That is not what the text says, he simply called down a curse on them. Nor does it say any of them were killed. Yes, it says 42 were mauled--but mauled means injured, not killed (it is not impossible some died, but it isn't stated as such). As for the claim that it was only for making fun of his head, that is unlikely. People hold up the fact 42 were listed as being mauled as bad because of how many it was--but that cuts around the other way, meaning there were at least 42 of them who were jeering at him. Do you think 42+ people came out of the city just to make fun of a guy for being bald? That seems highly unlikely. The far more likely situation is that they were actually planning to attack him, which makes his calling out of the bears a matter of defense.

Some other points are raised here.

l cannot accept that thesame God who killed 70,000 people simply for a sin committed by David is thesame God of a man like jesus whom l respect so much.

I assume this refers to David's taking of the census. The problem, however, is that as is stated in 2 Samuel 24:1, God was angry at Israel before David did anything. The reason for the anger is not stated--presumably it was Israel turning from God again--but to say it was "simply" for a sin committed by David is inaccurate; David's sin may have simply been the straw that broke the camel's back. (if anyone is wondering why it was portrayed as wrong for David to take the census, it was likely not the census itself that was the problem, but David doing it without the accompanying tax that was kind of the point of the census--see Exodus 30:11, which states that the tax should be levied when the census is conducted)

Also l cannot shut down my brain to what l know about textual variants in the new testament, and how writings like Mark 16v9-20 do not belong to the original, or 1 john 5v7 which was added to your kjv bible but was never in any earlier manuscript prior to the 10th century.
How can you know all these things and claim that the bible is an authority?

None of the textual variants threaten any major doctrine. It doesn't matter if you take out Mark 16:9-20, because the important information is found in the other Gospels. And while some have claimed that 1 John 5:7 is critical to the doctrine of the Trinity, it really isn't--people believed in it on the basis of other verses before 1 John 5:7 was ever in any manuscript.

For the records however, l respect the bible and the core of my theology and spirituality is based on the bible, but that doesn't mean l cannot question it. Martin Luther for instance, rejected the book of james, that doesn't make him a non Christian, but for you he is not a Christian because he doesn't accept all scriptures, but he kickstarted the reformation and this is most likely why you are not a catholic today.

Martin Luther did not reject the Book of James. He expressed some reservations about it but nevertheless accepted it.

Also, everyone, just so you know: Sabrina is taking posts from this forum and posting them on an atheist forum, pretending to be a Christian there. Then she takes their responses and posts them as her own here.

I figured this out because of some of the odd portions of her posts made me try to search out to see if she was copying them. And lo and behold, she was! And not just in this topic either--she's pulling this deceit in multiple topics, both here and over there.

XxSabrinaxX:

at least 12 other Messiahs and Prophets were mentioned by the Romans and others in the 1st century. Just in case your English skills inexplicably fail you here's a quick list
Abu Isa
Abraham Abulafia
Athronges
Simon bar Kokhba
Moses Botarel
Egyptian (prophet)
Eve Frank
Jacob Frank
Judah ben Shalom
Shukr Kuhayl I
Lukuas
Menahem ben Hezekiah
Menahem ben Judah
Mordecai Mokiach
Solomon Molcho
Moses of Crete
Nehemiah ben Hushiel
Judah Leib Prossnitz
Jacob Querido
David Reubeni
Simon of Peraea
Theudas
Sabbatai Zevi

All these guys have INDEPENDENT corroboration...look at the list anyone missing?
Maybe a prophet who attracted crowds of thousands? Who had Zombies preaching Jerusalem, who had 500 witnesses to his ascension? All of them utterly silent on the matter.., not one mention from anyone else in Jerusalem, Rome, anywhere? yet these unmemorable guys get a mention?

Well, the first thing I notice quickly is how many of these people who, according to you, were "mentioned by the Romans and others in the 1st century" actually lived after the first century. Take a look: Abu Isa (8th century), Abraham Baulafia (13th), Simon bar Kokhba (2nd), Moses Botarel (15th), Eve Frank (18th), Jacob Frank (18th), Judah ben Shalom (19th), Shukr Kuhay l (19th), Lukuas (2nd), Mordecai Mokiach (17th/18th), Solomon Molcho (16th), Moses of Crete (5th century), Nehemiah ben Hushiel (timing is a bit ambiguous but connected to a 7th century revolt), Judah Leib Prossnitz (17th), Jacob Querido (17th), David Reubeni (16th), Sabbatai Zevi (17th).

Did the Romans have access to time travel? Come now!

Additionally, Menahem ben Hezekiah, from what I can tell, was mentioned only in the Talmud. While the oral tradition underlying the Talmud goes back to the first century, the document itself is from later and thus cannot be counted towards this. Some believe he is the same as Menahem ben Judah, however, in which case it would still be improper to list him, as he shouldn't be counted twice.

With that in mind, the only ones left are Athronges, the Egyptian (prophet), Menahem ben Judah, Simon of Peraea, and Theudas. All of these "unmemorable" guys were leaders of insurrections or rebellions that required some level of military action from the Romans. None of this was the case with Jesus. This thus confirms my earlier points that the historians would have been a whole lot more interested in people who actually caused problems for Rome in uprisings than someone who was not of concern to the military.

Are you telling me that there would have been absolutely no people, Romans or Jews, with the writing skills when 500 zombies were roaming the city? Jerusalem? Really?

Uh, no, that wasn't what I said at all. My point was that because simple weathering and erosion have erased virtually all writings from that time period, trying to claim that none of them wrote it down is absurd because even if they did, the papers no longer exist. So this continued claim of them not writing it down is without merit, because if they had, we still wouldn't have those papers.

Also, I'm curious where this "500 zombies" claim you keep throwing out comes from. I assume this is in reference to Matthew 27:52-53, but it gives no number, nor does it say that they looked different than the living.

What did you do? Google your toilet?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/apr/15/books.guardianreview.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Christians

Let's return to what your claim was:

XxSabrinaxX:
The Gospel of Thomas was used as the foundation of the Christian Church in Kerala State, India and was used exclusively until the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th Century....

And then my response was:

RandomGuy48:
While it is true that tradition states Thomas visited India, I cannot find any evidence of this claim that the so-called "Gospel of Thomas" was used at all by the Christian Church in Kerala, let alone it being the foundation or exclusive holy book prior to the 16th century.

So, with that context in mind, let's look at your links. Do either of them say anything at all about the "Gospel of Thomas"? No. They merely repeat what I noted, that tradition states Thomas visited India. The links do mention the "Acts of Thomas" (generally thought to be written in the third century) but that is a completely separate document from the "Gospel of Thomas". Further, neither link says anything about it being the foundation of the church or the only text it used.

My favourite Tektonic article concerns comparisons between Jesus and Apollonius. You will no doubt, I am sure, be familiar with it RandomGuy48

Apollonius vs Jesus. Who. Will. Win?

Not surprisingly Tektonics strives to deny any real similarities between the life of this Pythogorean pagan saviour figure and their own Jesus. They don't deny the striking similarities, the virgin birth, the itinerant preaching and the claims to knowledge about a supreme deity, the persecution, trial and crucifiction (Jesus resurrected but Apollonius just survives, as many others have been recorded as doing.)

But they write off Apollonius because his story includes the advice of not taking hot baths, his having confronted a hobgoblin and chased it off with insults, as well as a satyr he puts to sleep by offering it wine, his claims to being able to speak all human and bird languages.

So looking it up, I assume you're referring to this article, as you don't link it:
http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/apollonius.php

To claim they "write off" Apollonius on the basis you describe is silly. Those are mentioned, but you seem to be ignoring the larger points it makes, including what it identifies as "the most important point", which is that "The stories of Apollonius were written some 150 years after the crucifixion of Jesus". So if there was any borrowing going on, there's a strong likelihood is was going in the other direction, towards Apollonius.

Speaking of that site, in regards to the list of writers who supposedly should have mentioned Jesus but didn't, perhaps I shall come back and do a more thorough examination later, but in the meantime I will post this link again:
http://www.tektonics.org/qt/remslist.php

In fact, interestingly, the various references you claim appear to be a slightly edited version of a source that was already answered by that page (scroll down to the "Reply" heading). Though I will note something not mentioned there: We do not have the full Satyricon by Petronius. It exists only in a fragmented manuscript which is missing a good amount of material. To complain about how Jesus is not mentioned in a work we do not have a full copy of seems presumptive.

XxSabrinaxX:

There are thousands of records from the 1st Century CE. Even from the beginning of the Century and before. The problem historically for Christians is that there is NO mention of the jesus figure until the earliest of the Epistles, which of course do not convey the same message as the much later stories in the Gospels which have been dated in the case of Mark to about 75CE at the earliest.

And yet those "thousands" of records are only a small part of everything that was written in that period. But that is somewhat besides the point. Of these "thousands" of records we have, which ones would have mentioned Jesus but did not? The primary historians were Romans who were mostly concerned about, well, Rome. A lower-class guy off in a distant province who didn't pose any real problems to the Romans and got killed early in his life would have been negligible to them, even if there were reported miracles.

The claim that Mark would be at the "earliest" 75CE is inaccurate. Certainly, there are reasonable arguments to be made for that or even later dates, but there are also reasonable arguments to be made for dates decades prior to that. Earlychristianwritings.com, hardly a conservative source, gives an estimated date range of 65-80 for Mark.

but not one note, message or side note about this jesus figure. Not one of the 5000 people fed on bread and fish thought to mention it, None of the attendees at the Sermon of the Mount. None seems to have witnessed the 500 plus zombies preaching around Jerusalem never mind the 'darkness at midday etc which was meant to accompany the lost weekend of the jesus figure.

This is an odd claim. You say none of them "Not one of the 5000 people fed on bread and fish thought to mention it." What's the basis for them not mentioning it? Lack of written statements by them? Even if they did do that, regular erosion has removed most documents from that era.

Further there is no record of ANY of the disciples in subsequent history, except in Second Century tales.

No record? The First Epistle of Clement refers to both Peter and Paul.

The Gospel of Thomas was used as the foundation of the Christian Church in Kerala State, India and was used exclusively until the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th Century....

While it is true that tradition states Thomas visited India, I cannot find any evidence of this claim that the so-called "Gospel of Thomas" was used at all by the Christian Church in Kerala, let alone it being the foundation or exclusive holy book prior to the 16th century.

Rubbish. The letters were to christians who may or may not have been using texts with no mention of the birth narrative, or, no mention of the resurrection. These were common in the early 1st century, and we know that because their use was later attacked by the Pauline church. The birth and death narratives were later additions probably in the late 1st century and some we know to the mid second or even 3rd Centuries.

The point is that one cannot claim Paul's lack of mentioning such things in the letters is somehow indicative of them being false or unknown when he would have little reason to mention them given he had already gone and preached to them in the past. That is when he would have shared any such information, not in the letters that were meant as correction or advice and thus a re-iteration of the gospel would be superfluous.

PS: The website you've been linking says that Apollo astronauts traveled to the moon.

Care to explain?

The Apollo astronauts mentioned there did travel to the moon, so I've no idea what your complaint is here.

LordReed:


It seems odd that one can take any interpretation for a book written by the inspiration of a god. It is odd that meaning doesn't seem to be preserved though the years from when it was written till now. The book seems to need additional context that is not readily available. The man in Akwa Ibom reading the book translated into his language will not have all this additional information and so is most likely to thing 3days and nights means literally. Heck even people in England reading the bible in English will think it's literal.

Well, the exact day of the burial of Jesus it not really an important item for a believer's faith outside of someone wanting a day that (to them) fulfills the 3 days and 3 nights requirement. So if one finds a timeline they find satisfactory, I don't really see any reason to argue with them about it, even if I do believe the evidence indicates it was simply using the Jewish reckoning of time and therefore not "literal" (at least as of thought of today) three days.

The article uses the word "allegedly" several times, which means it isn't necessarily true. What evidence is there for the claim, then?

LordReed:


I mean it was not a literal 72hr period and going by the timeline given in the bible, it was about 40hrs.

Ah, I see what you're getting at. I favor the interpretation that, per the Jewish reckoning of time (which would have been the one that mattered to the people who heard the prophecy), a full "literal" 72 hours was not required for three days and three nights and therefore the Friday burial, Sunday resurrection timeline fits the three days and three nights requirement.

That said, I don't find the possibility of a burial earlier in the week in order to fit the "full" 72 hours (as some have advocated here) to be particularly objectionable. Someone can take whichever explanation they prefer.

XxSabrinaxX:
We have no records of a magical working prophet contemporary to the life of this Jesus person. NONE. We do have records of about 8 other prophets during the same time period; however, regarding the guy that allegedly cause earthquakes, a darkness to fall over the earth, the blind to see, the lame to walk, the dead to rise from their graves, history is COMPLETELY and UTTERLY silent. If Jesus lived, not a single soul noticed him or had anything at all to say about him during his life. No one noticed his ride into the city on the back of an ass, no one noticed the great sermon on the mount, not a single soul watched him walk on water or feed the multitude with loaves and fishes. All we have are stories written by non-observers, generations after the fact. There is no eye witness to anything Jesus allegedly did. NONE.

This argument is often made. The problem is how few records we actually have from that time period to begin with, and how few of what we do have would have any reason to mention Jesus at all. For example:
http://www.tektonics.org/qt/remslist.php

Lastly and most importantly, we have no reputable account of a resurrection. What we have are 3 contradictory stories that were written more than 70 to 120 years after the supposed event.

The dating of the gospels is of course a complicated subject (I favor early dates for the synoptics but can understand the arguments for later ones), but "70-120 years after the supposed event" is a fairly fringe position. Even the more critical scholars date the gospels to the first century, except for perhaps John which sometimes gets put into the early second century. 70 is more akin to the maximum years after Jesus's death for the writing of the gospels by scholars, not the minimum.

As for the stories being contradictory:
http://www.tektonics.org/qt/rezrvw.php

What we have is Paul's version that never mentions miracles, virgin birth, or ministry on earth. We have Paul who admits that everything he knows comes from scripture or divine inspiration and he only knows about a Jesus who exists in the heavens. From Paul's version to the gospels, each story gains in complexity.

Paul would have little reason to go into details about miracles, the virgin birth, or ministry on Earth. Paul's letters, after all, were advice being sent to churches, i.e. people who were already Christians who already knew about the life of Jesus (this is in contrast to the Gospels, where the point was to let people know about the life of Jesus). You don't need to spend time reminding them of things they would have been well acquainted with already, especially given this was a time period where paper wasn't as easy to get and there was reason to save space.

LordReed:


Ok so it was not literal or the account in the bible is not accurate?

I literally just explained how it was literal according to the Jewish reckoning of time.